Subject: Death of the Internet - details at 11

From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 11:02:48 -0800

While one aging application does not constitute 'the Internet', this should
be taken as an early indicator of things that are happing, with more to
come. 
http://www.fourmilab.ch/speakfree/eol/

Like it or not, the IETF must stop wasting time and effort building new
structures on a crumbling framework. A quick scan of the IESG document queue
shows that the vast majority of the workload is still not seriously focused
on making IPv6 the default protocol. 

Happy new year,
Tony

---

From: [email-masked] (Mike S)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:49:15 -0500

At 02:02 PM 1/12/2004, Tony Hain wrote...
>be taken as an early indicator of things that are happing, with more to

The true threat is administrative, not technical. It won't do any good to have an IPv6 address space when ISPs won't allow personal servers (and block ports to enforce that ban), blackhole lists block communications from anyone not considered to be "in the club," and ISPs allow TOS/AUP contracts to be violated in proportion to the customer's monthly bill.

It won't be long before ISPs only allow SYNs to flow one-way for "non-business" customers.

Welcome to the new, improved Interweb.

---

From: Gordon Cook <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:55:28 -0500

>on making IPv6 the default protocol.

Agreed.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/  is the really 
spooky essay.  Excerpted in my December issue.

Read the Digital Imprimatur if you haven't already.

I will take another look at IPv6 before long and would welcome any 
**private** suggestions on how best to do that.

-- 
=============================================================
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---

From: Paul Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 20:13:02 +0000

>on making IPv6 the default protocol. 

Methinks you doth protest too much.

The Internet is not dying. It's growing every day. However, both end-users and yes, even service providers, are becoming exponentially stupid with time. They neither understand the issues we believe to be important at a technical level, nor do they care about understanding them anytime soon. The modern Internet is run by marketing, not technical, requirements.

IPv6 will not take off any time soon because neither the end-user nor the service provider sees the need. The moment AOL, Wanadoo, Tiscali, World Online et al shout out "we *need* IPv6" it will happen. Quickly.

So, is it time for some serious lobbying, or do we wait until half the applications out there suddenly stop working?

And out of curiosity, how many people here have migrated their entire network to IPv6 already to set a good example and show how it's done? Yes, thought so.

-- 
Paul Robinson

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 22:20:57 +0100

On 12-jan-04, at 21:13, Paul Robinson wrote:

> The modern Internet is run by marketing, not technical, requirements.

> IPv6 will not take off any time soon because neither the end-user nor 
> the service provider sees the need. The moment AOL, Wanadoo, Tiscali, 
> World Online et al shout out "we *need* IPv6" it will happen. Quickly.

In other words, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it 
drink.

(I wonder what AOL & friends are going to do when they find out that 
the apps won't use the IP version they made happen so quickly, though.)

> So, is it time for some serious lobbying, or do we wait until half the 
> applications out there suddenly stop working?

Wouldn't it be better to focus on providing the water and let the horse 
get thirsty in its own good time?

> And out of curiosity, how many people here have migrated their entire 
> network to IPv6 already to set a good example and show how it's done? 
> Yes, thought so.

Sorry, but that one won't work on me.  :-)

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 22:24:49 +0100

> Read the Digital Imprimatur if you haven't already.

I find it a tad on the wordy side... (27731 words, to be precise, more 
than an hour worth of reading.)

> **private** suggestions on how best to do that.

I would (or rather, did), but oh irony:

    ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<[email-masked]>
     (reason: 550 5.7.1 <[email-masked]>... 213.156.1.123 is 
unwelcome here)

---

From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:29:24 -0800

You seem to have missed the point. Not only are we loosing existing
applications, there are untold new things that are not making it to market.
These new applications are unable to generate the critical mass they need to
make any marketing noise because the NAT rich environment is too difficult
for Joe-sixpack to deal with. 

You will never hear a consumer demanding IPv6; that is technology plumbing.
The most they will demand is an app that only works because IPv6 provides
direct access between endpoint peers. You won't hear ISP's demanding IPv6
unless their customers are demanding apps that run over IPv6 (even then the
consumer is more likely to use an automated tunnel and make the clueless ISP
irrelevant). You won't get new apps unless the development community sees a
viable path to personal riches. You won't get the development community to
pay attention to the simplicity afforded by IPv6 until the IETF stops
wasting time trying to extend a dead protocol. Continuing work on IPv4 only
creates the illusion that it is a viable protocol for application developers
to rely on for future income. 

Tony

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Robinson [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 12:13 PM
> To: Tony Hain
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Death of the Internet - details at 11
> 
> Tony Hain wrote:
> 
> The Internet is not dying. It's growing every day. However, both end-users
> and yes, even service providers, are becoming exponentially stupid with
> time. They neither understand the issues we believe to be important at a
> technical level, nor do they care about understanding them anytime soon.
> IPv6 will not take off any time soon because neither the end-user nor the
> service provider sees the need. The moment AOL, Wanadoo, Tiscali, World
> Online et al shout out "we *need* IPv6" it will happen. Quickly.
> 
> network to IPv6 already to set a good example and show how it's done? Yes,
> thought so.
> 
> --
> Paul Robinson

---

From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 01:37:35 -0500

> World Online et al shout out "we *need* IPv6" it will happen. Quickly.

Interestingly, whenever we deploy an F root nameserver, the one 
operator we can absolutely rely on to do IPv6 peering with us is 
Tiscali.

> network to IPv6 already to set a good example and show how it's done? 

AS 3557 been routing both native v6 and v4 for some time now, and most 
of the content we host is served over both. AS3557 operates over three 
sites in California with cisco and Juniper routers; we're not big, but 
we're maybe a microcosm of a larger backbone/transit provider network.

The operational cost of supporting both v4 and v6 from the network 
perspective not great, based on our experience (although the support 
load for v6 clients to content hosted in our network is currently much 
lower than for v4 clients, as you'd expect).

I'd be very happy to share more details about what we're running with 
people who have interest.

Joe

---

From: Paul Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:36:07 +0000

> direct access between endpoint peers. You won't hear ISP's demanding IPv6

But that app has to be something particularly splendid. And in Europe at 
least, NAT is not as prevalent as some think it is.

> to rely on for future income. 

Are you suggesting then, that all RFCs based on IPv6 should be... stopped? 
By the sounds of it, what you're looking for is for us as a community to 
refuse to deal with IPv4 any more, that we wash our hands of it, and make 
vendors realise that they are going to be unable to support IPv4 for more 
than a few years?

It's brutal, but I can see the point. Thinking about a cut-off date for IPv4 
would indeed provoke some interesting discussion, but I think a lot of 
people still want to hang onto IPv4. Even so, how does July 31st 2005 sound 
to everybody?
 
-- 
Paul Robinson

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:30:05 +0000

> least, NAT is not as prevalent as some think it is.

It is prevalent wherever there is broadband.  And that is where (with the
extra bandwidth and always-on) connectivity into the network is desirable.
 
> vendors realise that they are going to be unable to support IPv4 for more 

IPv4+NAT will coexist with IPv6 for many years.   A home router can easily
offer v4/NAT and v6 together.   This allows v6 apps to be used opportunisticly
between homes or other networks that would otherwise have NAT and need some
3rd party broker.
 
> people still want to hang onto IPv4. Even so, how does July 31st 2005 sound 

That's rather insane :)   More like July 31st 2025 before we remove IPv4,
and even then it'll hang around... remember no-one *has* to install IPv6,
it's just an option if you want the functionality.   Users want features not
protocols.

Tim

---

From: Paul Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:35:05 +0000

> Are you suggesting then, that all RFCs based on IPv6 should be... stopped? 

That's what happens when you write e-mails and then don't check them before 
sending them...

s/IPv6/IPv4 - obviously. :-)

-- 
Paul Robinson

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:37:42 +0000

> Online et al shout out "we *need* IPv6" it will happen. Quickly.

IPv6 is taking off now because of specific high-profile demands like those
of the US DoD.  There have been many significant advances in the past 12
months in terms of stability of standards and hardening of implementations
(including h/w support from key vendors such as Juniper and Cisco).

Most users will use IPv6 without knowing it, which is part of the beauty but
also a little sad for those who have worked hard to make IPv6 happen.
 
> network to IPv6 already to set a good example and show how it's done? Yes, 

Many networks have, almost all via dual-stack.    Those who have done so have
found the extra cost minimal where the v6 capability is introduced as part of 
a normal procurement cycle.   The UK academic backbone JANET is one example
in your context.  Remember it's not about migrating in most circumstances,
it's about parallel capability to enable v6 to operate now as the first phase
of a (very long) transition.   But some networks are emerging ipv6-only, 
particularly in Asia.
 
Tim

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:47:26 +0100

On 13-jan-04, at 10:36, Paul Robinson wrote:

>> Continuing work on IPv4 only creates the illusion that it is a viable 
>> protocol for application developers to rely on for future income.

> Are you suggesting then, that all RFCs based on IPv6 should be... 

I think that one should read IPv4...

> vendors realise that they are going to be unable to support IPv4 for 

Hm, didn't they try something along those general lines at Coca Cola a 
while ago?

> people still want to hang onto IPv4. Even so, how does July 31st 2005 

Why don't we start by making *.ietf.org only reachable over IPv6 
starting 04-04-04?

---

From: Paul Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:21:33 +0000

> extra bandwidth and always-on) connectivity into the network is desirable.

Not around me it isn't. In the UK, even with cable modem providers, I have 
non-NAT - as they are known in the European ISP industry "RIPE addresses" - 
and although I've installed NAT myself to enable quick and easy WiFi access 
using the one IP address, there is nothing stopping me taking that box out 
and having proper IPv4 direct to my NIC.

In addition, many, many broadband ISPs in the UK will not only provide IP 
addresses, but will happily route subnets providing you fill in the form 
explaing why you want the addresses, so they can give the justification to 
RIPE if they need to apply for more address space.

There are a few big players who do NAT - BT OpenWorld is the biggest I know 
- and yes, they are aiming for a consumer market that as yet does not see 
the advantage of non-NAT network access. There are two ways people will 
address the issue when the time comes:

1. Demand non-NAT network access
2. Use protocols that work around NAT restrictions
  
> between homes or other networks that would otherwise have NAT and need some

I am not advocating a policy of insisting that IPv4+NAT gets withdrawn from
the Internet. What I am suggesting is that there is an official withdrawal
of support for continuing the development of IPv4 protocols - that we should
be saying to the world "Look, very nice, but we're about 3 years ahead of
you on the technology curve, and we're not providing life support for
something we know you won't want in 3 years time when we can be using 
that time dreaming up the support for the apps we know you will want"...
  
> it's just an option if you want the functionality.   Users want features not

I'm not saying we remove IPv4. Just we push market demands by removing
continued RFC support for protocols replying on it. This is exactly the
technique the author of Speak Freely used to bring this issue to our
attention. It's what MS, Sun, Cisco, everybody does. If you're happy with
IPv4, fine, keep it, but we're not going to carry on pumping resources into
something that quite frankly, is not a suitable use of our time. This to me 
seems a reasonable approach.

I think if we say "From the middle of next year, no more IPv4 RFCs or drafts 
please", then vendors and application developers will have to sit up and 
take notice. Remember, the protocols take between 6-36 months to be deployed 
for real, so what we'd actually be saying is "we don't think IPv4 is worth 
deploying from scratch after the middle of 2007". We'd be saying to 
application developers "Look, IPv4 isn't where you're going to make serious 
cash with innovative applications in the future, come play with IPv6".

And of course, if after a couple of years it isn't working, there is nothing 
stopping the IETF rescinding, and supporting IPv4 once more due to "customer 
pressures". :-)

-- 
Paul Robinson

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:50:15 +0000

> and having proper IPv4 direct to my NIC.

Which is one of the drivers.  Most ISPs still only give 1, often dynamic,
IPv4 address.   As soon as you have multiple home devices (I now have 11
different MAC addresses observed on my home router since last summer) you
hit the problem.
 
> RIPE if they need to apply for more address space.

I don't think it's that many.  And as you say, the big ISPs like BT who will
only give 1 IP (and indeed who will flat out refuse to support you if you
replace your USB DSL modem with a "real" DSL router) are the ones that make
up the vast majority of UK broadband.

Yes some people can go to smaller ISPs and find those that give subnets (I
found one that gives a /29 for free), but these are the minority.  

One beauty of IPv6 is not having to go back to RIPE to ask for more addresses;
you get enough to start with to avoid the paperwork cycles; that's some saving
in its own right.

I think protocols should continue to be developed that are as far as possible
IP independent.  This will help transition; stopping work on IPv4 seems
inapprpriate given IPv4 will be here for 20+ years still.   But there are
specific IPv6-only properties that are very interesting, like CGA, or
resilience to port scanning, that should be taken advantage of asap.

Tim

---

From: "Randall R. Stewart (home)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 06:43:43 -0600

>cash with innovative applications in the future, come play with IPv6".
Paul:

Something about this thread confuses me :-0  Now maybe it
is just me having my head down in the sand.. I work in the
transport area mainly and last I checked:

1) TCP/SCTP and UDP all run over IPv6, in fact SCTP
     (which I most work with :->) will setup an association
    with BOTH IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in the association,
    I don't even have to choose, I get them both as long as
    I open an AF_INET6 socket. :->

2)  I can't remember any transport area document in recent
     history (course I don't read them all) that is just IPv4... Most
     of the things popping around are the congestion control work
     for high speed and things for false fast retransmit... and other
     fun transport area stuff :-> No IPv4 specifis there ....

3) I cannot, in writting an RFC, make the user of the socket interface
    do "s = socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_SCTP);" At least
    I don't know how to specify that in a draft..

What I am saying is that a large part of the work in the IETF is rather
ambivilant to what the IP infrastructure is that is beneth it... is this 
not a
good thing?

Maybe y'all are refering to another area that I don't keep up on (which
is most since I can barely keep up in transport) :->

R

-- 
Randall R. Stewart
815-477-2127 (office)
815-342-5222 (cell phone)

---

From: Paul Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:17:56 +0000

>    I open an AF_INET6 socket. :->

Yes, I see what you're saying. I think the point was, we should be actively
dissuading any further work around IPv4 protocols (where they occur), NOT
actively encouraging IPv6. By saying IPv4 is "officially" dead, we might
push forward the replacement for it (IPv6) and the takeup with both vendors
and service providers, particularly when it comes to consumer end-points.

Several people have been citing their providers as offering dual-stack
services, and how IPv6 peering with Tiscali happens, etc. but they are
completely missing the point. What we're discussing is the need for IPv6 to
be pushed out to the edge of the network to broadband users as the DEFAULT,
and not an option for those hosting servers near the core of the network,
who get it when they ask for it, which is what we mostly have now.

I'm not advocating re-drafts where we stick IPv6 Requirements into 
everything in sight, however. :-)
 
-- 
Paul Robinson

---

From: jfcm <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 15:41:27 +0100

At 07:37 13/01/04, Joe Abley wrote:
>perspective not great, based on our experience (although the support load 
>for v6 clients to content hosted in our network is currently much lower 
>than for v4 clients, as you'd expect).
>

Gentlemen,
let agree IETF is lacking formal interfaces with the real world of users 
and the real world of operators.  John Klensin's official participation to 
the ICANN BoD is a first good step towards formal links with operators. 
However, the lack of relation of ICANN with users (@large) and the US 
oriented nature of ICANN (the problem is not the USA but a single country), 
leads world towards ITU. I support the principle of this move as a 
multilateralism American structures have some difficulties with, but not a 
move towards ITU-T.  We need an ITU-I where IETF may very well fit through 
a good and fruitful MoU or more.

Each "sector" (ICANN/NICs, @large, IETF/IAB, ITU/GAC) in this chain suffers 
from its imperfections and its lack of cooperation. For too long each said 
"the fault is with the other". IMHO the fault is with every of us and we 
all are to cooperate. When ICANN started the ERC process, I made sure in 
calling on everyone (Vin may recall that he contributed) that there was a 
consensus about the need to reform  ICANN (read Governance) and that the 
solution had to be consensual to succeed. The solution is not consensual 
and we saw Geneva WSIS positions as a result. We now have 2 years to 
correct that, before UN says "I take over".

White House identified the weaknesses of the system too. One of their 
answers is IPv6. http://whitehouse.gov/pcipb asks all the US 
administrations to move to IPv6. And DoD is obeying the Chief. In France, 
the Research Ministry switched to IPv6 and the research network for France 
(Renater) is the IPv6 leader (the same for Europe (Geant) as far as I 
understand). We all know what Asia is doing for IPv6. So, IPv6 could be a 
uniting factor to reorganize the Governance, the "Technicance" and the 
Brainware (the ways users use the system) in a concerted way, instead of 
bickering each other.

As a user/brainware person for a long, I see several issues where I need 
the Technicance and the Governance to help. Not to commit anyone I will say 
a popous "I", but it is actually several "we"s I currently see(share in) 
structuring

1. I am not technical enough on this to comment about IPv6 as an 
architecture and as a system. But I do not trust a system the architecture 
of which is to be dig into hundredth of RFCs and confused closed discussion 
lists. I need first an Internet architecture document (equivalent to what 
the W3C published) to understand what is the Internet network system 
application and how it relates with other network system applications such 
as telephone, television, OSI, etc. so I am sure everyone understands what 
we want to do together.

2. I am not a government but I have a IQ high enough to understand that 
Govs will not buy IPv6 the way it is proposed today for two main reasons.

- IPv6.001 (001 numbering plan) is unique and IPv6 is to support up to 6 
numbering plans. If IPv6 is to be deployed (real life tested) with only one 
numbering plan, we will face a Y2K potential threat since no one will be 
able to warranty the world a new numbering plan will be compatible with the 
then existing equipment base or even if IPv6 can support it. Nor that it 
will not endanger existing world operations. We have that exact example 
with the DNS. To introduce a new TLD is considered as a potential technical 
threat (while it should be able to support millions of it).

- IPv6.001 is flat. Both in routing and in addressing (and confuses both - 
some wanting to add identification/authetification). As such it offers no 
control nor surety to countries. Also, it creates many identification, 
bandwidth, recovery and economical problems.

I need a second numbering plan (IPv6.010)  to be accepted in the RFCs and 
discussed. And I do propose this plan to be defined and maintained by ITU. 
For several reasons. (1) to enforce the ITU-I concept and protect us from 
the Telcos [to aggregate the Telephone and X.121 numbering plan the ITU-I 
will have to talk with ITU-T] (2) to get the support of the Govs and show 
them what is possible and what is not in term of international Technicance. 
(3) to get a good PR for IPv6. The TF IPv6 submitted a document to the 
French Research Minister to promote IPv6: I tried to make them understand 
that technical arguments were low interest, what was of interest was to 
propose tax cuts for corporations switching to IPv6 to compensate for the 
equipment upgrade/change. If Govs are involved, they will understand better 
why to advertise IPv6 and to support to the change.

Also, I miss words like dynamic routing, anonymous network presence, 
domotic/teleurbanism support, service/addressing  continuity support, 
mobile identification, intelligent ubiquity support and I know the societal 
demand is for them. If they are not addressed, I able also able to 
understand there will be no funding for R&D programs by Europe or others. I 
am therefore not excited as this will not take off quick and I suppose that 
in the meanwhile someone may comes with an NGN universal addressing plan 
(COULD have been IPv6.010).

3. as user I find IPv6 totally unfriendly. The main reason why IPv4 will 
stay around IMHO is that I can manually use any ASCII editor and manage a 
DNS db file. The semantic of an IPv6 address is user unfriendly and its 
support obscure to me as a user. I want a 0-Z numbering plan first, to be 
able to quote an IPv6 address on the phone and an explanation manual in 
three pages that everyone will understand. If it is needed it must be 
simply understood and accepted.

Please give me a one page explaining why Music Lovers can universally take 
advantage from an IPv6 oriented TLD in a way where stakeholders may share 
in the control (through the naming used?) and I will tell you how we can 
quick make IPv6 ... universal.

We are in a real life world. Lobbying is of use towards Govs. and we (all 
of us together) need some. Only adhesion, interest, personal advantage can 
influence the users brainware. An IPv6 mandatory Napster is what we need.

Short of that IPv6 may never take off (what for? tell your kid why they 
need IPv6 and copy us. Here is what people may wantto listen to).
jfc

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 12:39:00 -0500

--On Tuesday, 13 January, 2004 15:41 +0100 jfcm <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> Gentlemen,
> let agree IETF is lacking formal interfaces with the real
> world of users and the real world of operators.  John
> Klensin's official participation to the ICANN BoD is a first
> good step towards formal links with operators.

Sigh.  Whatever that relationship constitutes, "formal links 
with operators" isn't one of them -- there are even fewer actual 
operators represented and actively participating in ICANN than 
there are in IETF.

Please, at least, get your facts right.

    john

---

From: jfcm <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:23:17 +0100

At 18:39 13/01/04, John C Klensin wrote:
>--On Tuesday, 13 January, 2004 15:41 +0100 jfcm <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>Gentlemen,
>>and the real world of operators.  John Klensin's official participation 
>>to the ICANN BoD is a first good step towards formal links with operators.
>
>Sigh.  Whatever that relationship constitutes, "formal links with 
>operators" isn't one of them -- there are even fewer actual operators 
>represented and actively participating in ICANN than there are in IETF.
>

Sigh. When will you think in network users terms?
In the operator - designer - user scheme I discuss, the operator (whatever 
the layer) is someone who operates something the user uses. These people 
ICANN claims to gather (and is partly doing).

If this is the way you think, oh, Boy! we better off to subscribe directly 
to ITU.
Thomas, I understand your martyrdom with ICANN.
jfc